Spring is attempting to pop its head out of the crusty snow piles here in Wisconsin. Ah yes, early spring is a special time around here. The mounds of snow we've spent all winter building now go through a melt and freeze cycle every day as temps fluctuate as wildly as my weight. Warm, melting temps plummet to freezing in a blink. The result is that the mounds of snow are now sharp, dirty islands of slowly melting rock ice. There's dirty water everywhere, run off from the melting snow. Everything smells like a wet dog. Best of all, as the snow recedes, it reveals the rubbish it's been covering for the last five months. Lovely.
But enough about the weather. Today I would like to talk about a new ingredient in my quest to be less lardy. I've begun to lift weights...sort of. Mostly I'm tired of having to try and read lips in Cardio Cinema because it seems like every time I go in there I wind up next to the person who has the iPod cranked well beyond eleven. Yesterday the woman next to me had it so loud that even though I was sitting under a speak, I could not hear the movie over her music.
I would have asked her why she's bothering to be in Cardio Cinema...but I'm thinking she might be deaf. And if she's not now, she will be soon enough. Who am I to stop anyone from doing what they want to do to themselves?
So, since I've been run out of the friendly confines of the darkness, I've started working out in other parts of Gold's. The pool I reserve for Thursdays, if I've been good. So the rest of my visits there are in the big middle area, the place I like to call the stable because that's where all the livestock is herded and then walked on treadmills. And lately, I've been straying to the weight area.
Let me clarify. Gold's has four areas in which you can lift weights. There's Lady's Golds, which is a little room off the ladies' locker room. There are some treadmills and some weights and no BOYS are allowed in. BUT, the TV situation in there is..well, I don't generally go in there. Then there's a weight space between Ladies' Golds and Cardio Cinema. This is a nice spot if you want to work on some machines, but you aren't hard core. I see a lot of women over there, getting toned, working hard. That's where I go.
Then there's a mirror image of this area on the other side. I've been there once, and only once and here's why...it's right next to area 4...THE CAGE. The CAGE is the free weight room. This is where super muscle bound guys spend entirely too many hours grunting and sweating and being generally scary to middle aged suburban mom types like me. These are guys whose shoulders are bigger than anything else on their bodies...except maybe their necks.
This is NOT a place for me!
I think of that entire space as sort of a boys area.
Lately, however, I've noted that some of the grunting muscle heads have sniffed their way over to the other side of the gym. While it's probably an accident because they were in search of water and there's a water fountain just outside of Cardio Cinema, it's become quite clear that some of the more evolved beasts have discovered that WOMEN LIFT WEIGHTS HERE. MUST GO WHERE THE WOMEN ARE!
Peaches noticed it first. She was doing a little lifting one day, minding her own business, when she could not escape the loud guttural grunting of the male next to her. It scared her, this great show of force from the stranger on the next machine. She's fourteen. It's doubtful she'll emerge from Ladies' Golds again.
I thought she was kidding. Certainly there could not be that many big muscly guys in that very small weight space in the late afternoon. Guys, sure, I've seen some older guys, maybe some teens over there sort of getting started on weights, but big muscle guys? Nah. They have the entire OTHER SIDE of the gym. There's no need to them to cross the stable, except to get water, and then go back to their CAGE. But yesterday, as I was adjusting the weights on every machine from LOOK AT ME I'M A WEIGHT LIFTER setting to something female humans might be able to lift without breaking something, I could not help but notice that I was the only female in the space. And, apparently, the males of the pack had taken notice.
Seriously, if I made this up it would not be as funny. So I'm sitting there, daintily pumping about 10 pounds of iron (which is all my hands can tolerate at this point) and all around me the males are trying to out lift, and of course, out GRUNT each other for my attention.
Guys, I'm in my 40s. I'm overweight. I'm MARRIED. Shoo!
But that wasn't all. When I took no notice of the mating calls, some of the more bold males began PREENING in front of me by way of FLEXING their muscles in the mirror. As I moved around the circuit to machines closer to the mirror, more of them began to flex. The flexing was, of course, accompanied by grunting and, for reasons I cannot fathom, general comments of self congratulations.
Still, I took very little notice, (Except to note in my head that THIS was going to be my topic for blogging today) and then it happened. The boldest of the males, the one who flexed so hard I thought he might rupture his skin...removed his pants.
Now, when I say removed his pants, I don't mean he stripped down to his undershorts so that I would get a better image of his "little man." (I think I can speak for a lot of women when I say, frankly...we just don't want to see that.) No, had he done that, I might have understood, and congratulated him on having the boldest mating ritual. Indeed, no. This pants removal was far sadder, and therefore more comical.
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| When you have to remove your pants in an instant... |
He ripped off his tear away sweat pants.
You know the pants with the snaps up the sides of each leg? Yeah, this guy was wearing those.
Did I mention he was about five feet tall?
So let's review. I'm minding my own business, doing a little weight training when I suddenly find myself in the middle of a show on Animal Planet. Then, after all the grunting and flexing and failed attempts to attract my attention, the smallest, yet boldest of the males, rips off his snap on pants in a very questionable attempt to attract me to his lair to mate.
It's a rule at Gold's that you're not supposed to let the weights slam down because they might break. And that, my friends, is the ONLY reason I didn't burst out in complete and uncontrolled laughter when this very over built, very short gentleman ripped sweats I've always thought were stupid right off his body. I dare any of you to not laugh at that!
Ya know...Ladies' Golds is looking better all the time!
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